Fake!

[Jonathan H]

http://home.comcast.net/~tprinty/UFO/mj12.htm

[Harry the Hawker]

Hi Mac

Would that be a Northern Burrowing Owl or a Florida Burrowing Owl? What are their relative airspeeds?

Dave

Laden, or unladen?

Best!
Harry

[Fleetwood Mac]

Jonathan,

You believe that the diary is a hoax.

Where do you think the diary hoaxer sourced the thoroughly obscure fact that Maybrick's parents were buried in the same grave?

Tom

They're buried at Anfield cemetary, along with James.

That would be very easy to discover, particularly for someone from Liverpool.

[Tom Mitchell]

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012...n_1737013.html

Jonathan,

You believe that the diary is a hoax.

Where do you think the diary hoaxer sourced the thoroughly obscure fact that Maybrick's parents were buried in the same grave?

Tom

[Jonathan H]

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012...n_1737013.html

[Tom Mitchell]

Tom,

Clearly the Grand National is a major English sporting event.

A colossal amount of books have been written on this subject including facts, figures, statistics etc.

In my view, even a burrow owl would possess the wisdom needed to include some facts from the period.

I should have added in my reply of yesterday that you have clearly focused on an obscure detail in the diary which you believe to be easily-researched (I question whether that was true given that it took Shirley Harrison's researcher a significant amount of time to uncover it in a pre-WW2 sports magazine).

What I should have added yesterday was a request for you to clarify whether a similar 'colossal amount of books' also have been - in your opinion - written on where James Maybrick's parents were buried?

As I say, you just can't have it both ways.

Tom

[Tom Mitchell]

This is a circular argument:
"The diary refers to the letter so the letter is genuine; the letter supports the diary writer's authorship of the name so the diary is genuine."

I'm moving on from this now as I try not to get deeply embroiled in diary threads.

Regards, Bridewell

Hi Bridewell,

Obviously, it's a circular argument - we all knew that before you told us.

The point is that for now one supports the other (until one or both are proven to be hoaxes).

It is worth noting here, once again, that our 'shoddy hoax' has been supported by a hoaxer who was prepared to access Home Office files (as I recall) and slip the 'faked' Sept 17 letter into a genuine Home Office docket (I think) for discovery by Peter McLelland in 1988. That's a huge amount of effort and a cunning degree of forethought given that the diary still had four or five years to emerge into the light of day.

Definitely no shoddy hoax.

Cheers,

Tom

[Tom Mitchell]

Hi Tom,

The argument that Maybrick was running his own business, but could not afford a diary and lacked the wit to find a secure place in which to store a scrapbook substitute is not convincing.

Enjoy the ride!

Regards, Bridewell.

Hi Bridewell,

We are in danger of adding-in inferred detail here (I have no doubt that I do the same) and - before we know it - this will become established fact.

If the diary were authentic, then Maybrick chose to use that scrapbook - fact. There can be no debate about that - so in order to explain how that could have come to pass if the diary were authentic all we can do is surmise why he would choose to do so. Personally, I favour a spur-of-the-moment urge to do so and - being unable or unwilling to go out and purchase a book or diary or whatever - he grabbed at the first means he could find. I'm guessing he was in his office, alone, and it was late (shops were shut). Ultimately, I'm guessing and doing so merely to fill-in the gaps in our knowledge in the event that the diary was authentically written by him. I'm definitely not using this possibility to strengten the case for authenticity as clearly it is mere suppositon and therefore clearly has no bearing on the authenticity argument. If he wrote it, he wrote it, and we are left to guess why he chose the format he did. If he didn't write it, then we are left to guess why the hoaxer chose the format he or she did. We may agree (as I'm sure we do) that the format favours the hoaxer over Maybrick because the circumstances seem stronger in the hoaxer's favour, but that does not alter the fact that there are circumstances which could explan why Maybrick wrote the diary in the format he did (if he did). Thus, the format does not prove or disprove the case for Maybrick being its author.

By adding-in the detail that you do - that I was suggesting that he could not afford a diary - you are fundamentally changing the facts to improve the position you are taking, and that's not reasonable. We don't know whether he could get his hands on a more conventional book or diary. We don't know that he ever planned to write all of what he wrote. We certainly know that he never once referred to it as a diary, so we are unable to know what his motivations or his circumstances were on the day he started it.

The diary may look an utterly surreal choice to us (and indeed it does). In this regard, it joins the provenance story in terms of face value plausibility. But neither condemns the diary to more than doubt, and certainly neither proves the hoax, though many may believe they individually and collectively lean us towards that view.

Cheers,

Tom

[Beowulf]

I have my doubts as to the authenticity of the Maybrick diary, especially since part of the diary papers were torn out, as if someone found a Victorian diary, ripped out the 'real' diary and wrote another on it's pages, to create the illusion it was the 'real' diary.

Also, In January 1995, Michael Barrett swore in two separate affidavits that he was "the author of the Manuscript written by my wife Anne Barrett at my dictation which is known as The Jack the Ripper Diary."[17] Adding to the confusion, however, was Barrett's solicitor's subsequent repudiation of his affidavit, then Barrett's withdrawal of the repudiation. (Wiki)

But the mystery to me is what about the supposed Maybrick watch?

[Supe]

It might take some time, though, as I'm not only dealing with infrared film,

Infrared film in connection with the MJK photographs? Do you quite have any idea how ridiculous that is?

Don.

[Michael W Richards]

Hello all,

Hoaxes very often are well researched and created with some effort on the part of the fraudulent. It remains possible that the kidney section sent to Lusk was actually a hoax.

Although I enjoyed reading the premise post Ill refrain from commenting on the diary's probable authenticity.

Best regards,

Mike R

[Bridewell]

As I say, it is unreasonable to have it both ways. The diary is either the real deal or an exceptionally well-researched hoax. It certainly isn't what it has frequently here been accused of - that is, a shoddy 'hoax'.

Hi, Tom,
It's also a hoax created with carefully chosen materials, although an 1888 diary seems to have been an unobtainable item - which shouldn't have been the case in Maybrick's lifetime. I agree that it's not a shoddy hoax.

Regards, Bridewell.

[Tom Mitchell]

Tom,

Clearly the Grand National is a major English sporting event.

A colossal amount of books have been written on this subject including facts, figures, statistics etc.

In my view, even a burrow owl would possess the wisdom needed to include some facts from the period.

I don't doubt for a moment that we are all in agreement that - if you dig deep enough and long enough - you could research and uncover a plethora of interesting nuggets to make any faked diary of a serial killer, dictator, etc. appear the genuine article.

But I don't think it is reasonable to have it both ways. There are diary detractors who have gone on the record as stating that they could have written the diary when they were 13, or over a weekend, or it required no insight, or it lacks depth, or it lacks detail.

And yet we now have you - I suspect a diary-detrator yourself - telling us that a throwaway comment such as the reference to the 1889 Grand National being the fastest the purported author had ever seen could easily have been referenced from 'A colossal amount of books'.

Do you suppose, then, that our hoaxer just happened to have one of those books to hand when they threw in that astonishing detail, or do you suppose that they went to a library or a book shop and looked it up?

As I say, it is unreasonable to have it both ways. The diary is either the real deal or an exceptionally well-researched hoax. It certainly isn't what it has frequently here been accused of - that is, a shoddy 'hoax'.

[Cogidubnus]

Hi Mac

Would that be a Northern Burrowing Owl or a Florida Burrowing Owl? What are their relative airspeeds?

Dave

[Fleetwood Mac]

… true the race was the fastest I have ever seen … The 1889 Grand National was the fastest race since The Lamb won in 9 minutes 35.75 seconds in 1871 which itself was the fastest since The Huntsman won in 9 minutes 30 seconds in 1862. If Maybrick routinely attended the race, he would have seen only one faster in the previous 27 years (assuming that he attended the 1871 race at all). I uncovered this information using Wikipedia in less than a minute in 2012, but in the pre-internet age this information would not have been readily available. The diary writer demonstrates astonish insight into a most unlikely fact, and this must support the view that the diary is authentic and that Maybrick was Jack the Ripper. [3]

… his Royal Highness was but a few feet away from yours truly … The Prince of Wales attended the 1889 Grand National. Even Wikipedia and Google cannot provide that information so quite how the diary writer did so in the pre-internet age must make us consider the possibility that this was possible because the diary writer himself was there on March 29, 1889. [3]

Tom,

Clearly the Grand National is a major English sporting event.

A colossal amount of books have been written on this subject including facts, figures, statistics etc.

In my view, even a burrow owl would possess the wisdom needed to include some facts from the period.